When in doubt move a rock

Well, I'm back from my missions trip, and I must say now how absolutely AWESOME it was! We all had tonnes of fun and all got along great.

So, from the first of April to yesterday the team was working at a church in the semi-countryside of the valley. So, here's a basic outline of what we did:

Sunday: Got up at 5:00 am, met all together and then went to the church (the service started at 7, ended at 9). Now, to give you an idea of the size of this church, the pastor introduced us to everyone in the church building during the service, including children. So, then the pastor says "Ok everyone, meet back here in half and hour, ready to work." So, in that half an hour, we wandered round the town, and then came back to work, in our Sunday clothes... We had no idea that they only worked on Sundays, so we all got fairly sunburnt and such. After a lunch of soup, we headed back to our lodgings at around 2:30. Got set up, and went through everything for the week.

Monday: More prepared for work, sunscreen, hat and work clothes were donned and we headed out. Mixing cement and moving rocks became a speciality for us. Whenever we didn't know what to do, we could move rocks. During the week we basically filled in the foundation, getting things ready for the next stage of building. We stopped work for lunch, and then got all set up for the kids program. Puppet stage was pulled out and set up (even though it kept falling apart if anyone so much as pushed it) and the play practised one more time. Some of the team played soccer with the kids, then we had songs, and then puppets (my area of "speciality") and then crafts (sticking wool on a cut-out sheep and Gods Eyes) and games. Lots of fun, but hugely tiring...

Tuesday: Basically the same thing as Monday, but we gals were given the chance to help out with kitchen stuff, so we pealed Abba (a kind of bean thing, it looks like a lima bean, kinda). Now, Tuesday was bad because yours truly forgot the CD player, so the team (expertly, I might add) stepped in for the most complicated puppet play and did it with just their voices and the script. Again, kids club was awesome, and we got about 30-40 kids throughout the week. This day they made little examples of good soil, bad soil and rocky soil. Back to our lodgings for cards, music, and Guinness world book of records.

Wednesday: More moving of rocks, mixing cement and practical jokes (Its all fun and games until someone's neck gets sanitized). This time the CD player went in, and the puppets went really smoothly. The lessons for the week were: The lost sheep, the parable of the sower, and the resurrection of Christ. The kids seemed to really enjoy the puppets, which made me happy, as that was the area I was kind of in charge of. For crafts the kids made empty tombs, and then played their favourite game (The one with a shark catching fishes, and then the fishes become sharks too). Van time has become a lot of fun, with singing, joking and such...

Thursday: The last day... We packed up everything (including the high-jump mats which we girls slept on) and went off to the church. Construction was basically the same, for the guys at least... The girls went shopping for stuff for the games and got the craft ready, then we moved rocks. Lunch was our favourite soup (sopa de maní- peanut soup) which has fried potatoes in it... yum!!! And the kids club was a review of what we had learned over the week. We had less kids today, but that's because it was a school holiday for them. The craft people made a mobile with verses applying to the lessons and then it was games! The kids got dressed up in the clothes of some of the bigger guys of the team, then had to run to a point and run back again. Then we mummified them with pink toilet paper, the mummies had to run to a point and back again, without losing too much paper, it was at this point the wind kicked in, making things more interesting. (Sand in contact lenses doesn't make a great mix). Then it was snack time. The kids were then left to eat their watermelon and jelly. We were herded into the church, where we were presented with a traditionally made blanket, which is super cool. Pictures and such were taken, and we said goodbye. We went out for dinner, which was fun, because we could de-brief and laugh over things that happened over the week.

So that was my missions trip :) It was fun...